My journal writing has taken a shift in the past few days. First, there was a period of almost nothing. I filled up the space of my days with painting and reading. Then when the words started to trickle back in they were distorted, and I ended up drawing and doodling on the page. Then the drawings took on more life and the words slipped in various forms.

I used to pre-design my journal pages with printed images captured from the internet. I used them as inspiration, idea triggers, and practice pegs. I also used them as illustrations to represent the images constantly moving around in my head, symbolic substitutes of my dreams, wishes, trails of pursued thoughts.

As the new drawings and words poured out with unusual forms I suddenly found the pre-designed pages cramping. I tore out the pasted images and drew over with my own. Then finally I started getting into a rhythm, and both images and words started to flow with better harmony.

It seems to me that I have shifted into a next-level state wherein I need less borrowing of other people's images and ideas, and become a bit more confident in expressing my own. I am still continuously inspired by the works of other artists but the stage of imitation and modelling is perhaps slowly transitioning into individualising my own work.

The drawings also seem to nudge me to explore another path with my art. This style has been springing up but I have been ignoring it as I felt it was not "ripe" enough. But maybe it is now.

This new way of journalling is helping me merge my words and images better, something that I have been striving to do in the past weeks for my poem-paintings. I have had a few promising paths open up but I am still not satisfied. So maybe this journal breakthrough is telling me something I am simply too stubborn to see.